Uttal och dess begriplighet i finskspråkiga gymnasisters L2-svenska

Abstract

In this dissertation in applied linguistics, I examine the Swedish pronunciation and its comprehensibility in Finnish-speaking upper secondary school students’ read aloud text. I explore how comprehensible Finland-Swedish and Swedish-Swedish listeners find Swedish pronounced by speakers of Finnish. In addition, I analyze which features of pronunciation are linked with comprehensibility assessment and how important features differ from target pronunciation. I reflect the results in an analysis of Swedish as second language textbooks, and find out how pronunciation and comprehensibility are taken into account in pronunciation tasks. The results of the research can be utilized in research, teaching and production of learning materials. In my dissertation research, I utilized one research material, which I examined from the perspective of the research traditions of comprehensibility research using different phonetic research methods. The research material consists of a text read aloud by Finnish-speaking upper secondary school students (n = 21). I examined the comprehensibility using a verbalized scale in an auditory listening test aimed for L1 Swedish-speaking raters (n = 64). I also analyzed the pronunciation skills using evaluations by expert listeners (n = 4). I studied the pronunciation further acoustically in the light of previous auditory analyses. In addition to these, I studied textbooks (n = 10) in L2-Swedish using the methods of qualitative content analysis. Of the seven pronunciation features examined in the study (individual sounds, duration, word stress, sentence stress, intonation, pauses, speech rate), the most important features of pronunciation were sentence stress and sounds. Based on statistical analyses, sentence stress proved to play a crucial role in whether or not the speaker was fully comprehensible. The less well-understood pronunciation lacked a clear duration contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables. The pronunciation of sounds determined whether or not the listener needed to focus carefully in order to understand the speaker. The results also showed that even fully comprehensible pronunciation differed from the L1 Swedish. Thus, the pronunciation does not have to be native-like to be fully comprehensible. For example, the effect of phonemes sje, /ʉ/, and /u/ on comprehensibility assessment was small. Pronunciation tasks in textbooks often focus on individual sounds that were practiced by listening to and repeating words. However, no instructions are given for producing prosodic features, sentence stress, word stress, and intonation, but prosody was practiced more implicitly by listening and repeating. Keywords: pronunciation, comprehensibility, second language learning, oral language skills